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An environmental baseline for food webs at deep-sea hydrothermal vents in Manus Basin (Papua New Guinea)
Van Audenhaege, L.; Fariñas-Bermejo, A.; Schultz, T.; Van Dover, C.L. (2019). An environmental baseline for food webs at deep-sea hydrothermal vents in Manus Basin (Papua New Guinea). Deep-Sea Res., Part 1, Oceanogr. Res. Pap. 148: 88-99. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2019.04.018
In: Deep-Sea Research, Part I. Oceanographic Research Papers. Elsevier: Oxford. ISSN 0967-0637; e-ISSN 1879-0119
Peer reviewed article  

Available in  Authors 
    Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee: Open access 343654 [ download pdf ]

Keyword
    Marine/Coastal
Author keywords
    Hydrothermal vent; Deep-sea mining; Environmental management; Isotopictrait space; Food web; Trophic interactions

Authors  Top 
  • Van Audenhaege, L.
  • Fariñas-Bermejo, A.
  • Schultz, T.
  • Van Dover, C.L.

Abstract
    Food webs and trophic interactions provide a measure of ecosystem function and have been highlighted as an important element for environmental baselines and environmental impact assessments. Stable isotopes have long been used in the deep sea as a means to explore and summarize food webs, especially in chemosynthetic ecosystems, where there may be multiple sources of primary production with distinctive isotopic compositions. Hydrothermal vents in Manus Basin have been targeted for mining and, if mining proceeds, vent food webs will be altered. Here we describe a pre-mining baseline for the food-web state for 3 active vent fields. Manus vents support at least 9 feeding guilds, and both reverse TriCarboxylic Acid (rTCA) and Calvin-Benson-Bassham (CBB) carbon fixation pathways are inferred for symbionts of holobiont taxa. There are site differences in the C-N-S isotopic trait spaces (convex hulls) of Manus Basin vent food webs that likely reflect environmental variability. Isotopic diversity metrics (divergence, dispersion, evenness) are similar in Solwara 1, South Su, and PACMANUS vent food webs, but South Su has a higher degree of isolation in isotopic space (uniqueness). Because convex hull and isotopic diversity metrics are easy to calculate from multidimensional isotopic data, they may be useful food-web indicators for environmental management.

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